Bashara to be formally charged with wife's murder

Bob Bashara is expected to appear in a Detroit courtroom Wednesday to formally face allegations that killed his wife through a cohort.

Bashara will be charged with first-degree murder, solicitation of murder, suborning of perjury during a capital trial, witness intimidation and obstruction of justice in front of Magistrate Laura Echartea in 36th District Court in Detroit.

Bashara, 55, a former landlord, is accused of promising to pay and threatening his handyman, Joseph Gentz, to strangle his wife, Mount Clemens native Jane Bashara, 56, in January 2012 in the garage of their Grosse Pointe Park home.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy announced the charges nearly two weeks ago and revealed some of the large volume of evidence her assistants will present at trial.

The 6 foot, 3 inch, 265-pound Bashara will be transported from a state prison for the hearing since he is already serving a sentence of 80 months to 20 years in prison for trying to have Gentz killed last June while Gentz was housed in the Wayne County Jail facility. For his role, Gentz, 49, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder last December and is serving a 17-to-28 year term. First-degree murder carries a mandatory penalty of life in prison without parole.

Magistrate Echartea is expected to schedule a district court preliminary examination at which the prosecution will be required to establish probable cause that a crime was committed and Bashara committed it, unless he and his attorney, Mark Kriger, decide to waive the hearing.

Criminal defense attorney Steve Kaplan, a former assistant prosecutor in Wayne and Macomb counties, said he expects Gentz to testify since he is the key witness in the case.

“You need him to meet the threshold,” Kaplan said, adding that prosecutors at trial will supplement his testimony with an excessive amount of corroboration evidence.

Kaplan said he expects minimal delays in the proceedings and a trial to be started by the end of the year. The trial itself could be lengthy – several weeks or more -- in part because the lead attorneys, Kriger and assistant Wayne prosecutor Lisa Lindsey, are meticulous trial attorneys.

Jane Bashara’s body was found in her Mercedes SUV parked in an east-side Detroit alley. Gentz, a former St. Clair Shores resident who is developmentally disabled, reportedly confessed to police about a week after the slaying and was arrested five weeks later.

Jane Bashara graduated from Mount Clemens High School. She most recently worked as a marketing manager for an energy consulting company in Detroit after working for Detroit Edison for 25 years.